Galway

by Matthew Thayer

  30,000 B.C. CHRONICLES

  GALWAY

  By Matthew Thayer

  U.S. Copyright: Matthew Thayer, Feb. 26, 2012

  Published as ebook, Oct. 1, 2015

  ISBN – 978-0-9883879-3-5

  Cover art and chapter sketches by Darko Tomic

  30000bc.com

  matthew@30000bc.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Thayer

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  GALWAY IS DEDICATED TO READERS EVERYWHERE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ADDITIONAL BOOKS IN THE SERIES

  CHAPTER ONE

  Galway is a compilation of journal entries and voice transmissions created by time travelers shipwrecked in the Paleolithic. The members of the scientific expedition tell the tale in their own voice and style. Their quotes are unaltered and true.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “My poor feet are killing me.”

  Jones: “Almost there.”

  Bolzano: “That is what you claimed two hours ago.”

  Jones: “Sal, shut the fuck up.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  Dover’s white cliffs were but a tiny fingernail clipping glimpsed through misty gaps in the pines as we hoisted our packs, rounded up the dogs, and resumed our northward slog across the forested plain. Some fateful day, rising seas and a cataclysmic tsunami will transform this wild river basin into the English Channel. Hopefully not this day!

  Spurred by an old man’s promise of dry, comfortable caves to bed down in and its first warm meal in a week, the Green Turtle Clan pushed hard across a prehistoric environment split more or less evenly between muddy land and muddy water. Looming larger each time we spied them, Dover’s bluffs provided a welcome distraction from our aches and pains.

  Though I am not one to gripe, it was no picnic trudging in sodden leather moccasins through incessant morning rains, navigating beneath an unendingly dank, dripping canopy of mature ash, beech and conifer. Our meandering took us over sandy hillocks, around lakes, through boggy meadows, and across too many damn brooks, streams and rivers to count.

  The migratory herds and their attendant predators have long since trekked southeast in their annual clockwise circuit of Western Europe. Compared to the chaos we witnessed this summer, the land seems almost abandoned. Even so, we must forever be alert for wolves, cats, rhino and other nasty beasts intent on mayhem. They are never far.

  At least il sole chased the clouds away for a few hours. Our clothes were nearly dry when we halted at the mighty cliffs’ base. Baked by late afternoon sun, the towering flanks were warm to the touch. Unburdening ourselves of spears, packs and clubs, craning our necks like country rubes visiting the big city for the first time, we surveyed the cream-colored cliffs peppered with gray flint. It became a contest to see who would be first to locate Leonglauix’s fabled cluster of caves.

  In a much different life lost to the future, I sailed past the legendary landmark many times. My dear friend Sir Bruce owned a submersible sailboat, which he moored in nearby New Brighton. For a time, right up until the authorities sent poor Bruce off to jail for fraud, the tall aristocrat hosted quite spiffy parties. When seas were calm, we of the A-List would lounge on deck, cracking wise and sampling the latest vintages of synthetic drugs. In storms, Bruce’s people retracted the masts, sealed the hatches and took us beneath the waves for fast runs to pubs in Dublin or Edinburgh.

  I was daydreaming of steaming kidney pie served with spicy mustard and tall glasses of dark Irish ale, contemplating how the setting sun still buttered the cliffs in shades of yellow and orange, when an eruption of excited barking brought me back to earth. The strange calls echoed off the walls to incite a flurry of yowling responses, including several dangerously close to where our traveling party took cover in a fragrant patch of sedge.

  Neanderthal trackers had discovered our trail.

  I assure you it was not carelessness that allowed them to detect our passing, for although our entourage had been moving with speed, it had been silent walking as only the Green Turtle Clan is able. Led by gray-bearded storyteller Leonglauix and trailed by his nephew Tomon, our crew had been creeping across the landscape in fits and starts all day, forever scanning the way ahead and checking our back trail to make sure we were not followed.

  As the trackers summoned their posse, I feared brave Leonglauix would lead us up into a tumble of chalk boulders to set up a defensive position. Whether he is hunting, fighting or just telling a story, the man does like the high ground–and he rarely ducks an opportunity to thrash a den of snakes. On this day, however, Leonglauix deemed it prudent to turn tail and run. He signaled us with a wave of his arm and I was most relieved to follow.

  Dragging pine boughs to wipe away our tracks, moving in a direct line away from the eerie yips and barks, we let the slope take us to the boggy lowlands, a primordial soup of hanging moss, spider webs, swimming serpents and woolly rhinos. Wading through the morass was as unnerving as it was uncomfortable, but we did have a bit of luck on our side. Millions of birds were coming to roost in the trees and bushes to create what the natives call “quiet time,” a period every evening when the cacophony is so overwhelming normal conversation is impossible. Though I often curse the phenomenon for spoiling the tranquility of my sunsets, it was most propitious to have the nattering of starling, crow and jay to mask the sounds of our flight.

  Sloshing through dwindling dusk, our clan of 12 adults, one baby and three dogs penetrated perhaps four kilometers into the swamp before the old man led us to a mushroom-shaped molehill, a crown of earth that may well have been the only dry spot in many, many square kilometers of drowned forest. It was atop that fern-covered mound where we spent the first of nearly a dozen dreadful, mosquito-bitten nights and days hiding like muskrats in the quagmire.

  Once the birds settled, we listened to the Neanderthals’ frustration build as they searched for us amongst the cliffs and forest. That danger, combined with incessant attacks by thirsty bugs and nearby screams of large felines on the hunt, made sleep impossible–at least for me. Setting off in the first red rays of dawn, we left the Neanderthal barks behind by angling south toward one of the many large lakes that pock the bottomlands.

  Leading us ever deeper into the watery hell, our wily leader insisted the absence of “Flat Head” calls meant nothing. He refused to allow cook fires, and sternly admonished any poor sap who accidentally set a flock of ducks into flight or caused a hippo to bellow in surprise. His dog knows enough to keep her muzzle shut, but my sweet Izzie and Lanio’s male are not so well trained. Each dog received a fair share of cuffs and kicks to silence its barking. Grazing for sustenance as we traveled, we dined mostly on fat locusts, raw crayfish tails, sweet melons hanging from vines and blackberries plucked from continent-sized brambles.

  On the fifth day, with the clan’s grousing building toward a crescendo, Leonglauix called a halt under the lichen-encrusted limbs of a gnarled old cedar. Layers of peat and ferns had piled around the base of the tree through the decades to make it a rather dry
and inviting place to shed our soggy footwear and recline. The cattail-littered shore of the lake was not more than a half-kilometer away. Its shimmering surface cast reflections up into the canopy above our hiding spot.

  Young parents Tomon and Gertie spread a small blanket stitched from three fox furs for their baby boy. Despite being dotted by bug bites, the precocious child made not one complaint. His happy goos and gaws said there was nothing wrong with his world.

  Americans Maria Duarte and Paul Kaikane leaned their weary backs against their packs and idly picked leeches off each other’s legs. No doubt, Duarte was thinking about the reports she will write should we ever escape the watery abyss. The woman’s intensity is matched in inverse measure by her husband’s mellow nature. Though obviously exhausted, Kaikane’s ever-present smile gave his face a drowsy air of contentment.

  Our resident warrior, Capt. Jones, dropped his pack and scaled up into the cedar’s limbs to monitor the approaches to our hideout–and also conveniently remove himself from the side of his native girlfriend, Fralista. Leonglauix’s daughter has been rather clingy of late.

  My ex-girlfriend, Lanio, and her new mate, Greemil, tended to the dogs, fed them scraps of frog and grub to keep them quiet. Left to sulk, Fralista sat in a patch of sunlight alongside her drummer boy cousins, Bongo and Conga. Resting flat on their backs, unable to still their fingers, the musicians lightly thrummed their chests and thighs, no doubt pining for the day when they will once again make magic by banging sticks upon turtle shells and hollow logs.

  The gran capo gave us an hour to decompress. Once his dog had eaten her fill, he clicked his tongue to call her to his side. Motioning the bitch to lie down, he went to work with gnarled fingers, combing burrs and matted hair from her thick coat. Talking to her occasionally in a low voice to soothe the times when he must saw with a flint blade to remove the worst of the tangles, he kept at it until she was groomed to his satisfaction. When finished, he used the same clicking noise to call his people in close for a conference.

  “Hear me when I say this,” Leonglauix said sotto voce, several octaves lower than his usual storytelling range. “You have heard me speak of the Green Turtle Clan’s great races with the Hunter. Did you think we crossed no swamps during those difficult times? While running for our lives? Did I forget to mention that part? Or were you not listening? We lived in the middle of swamps and atop mountains. We scampered like mice to all the places where civilized people do not hunt. That is how we survived!

  “You people must think. You must understand. We are in the same sort of race. Those Neanderthal who found our trail, they are the Hunter’s men, his Sons. I recognize their language. They have been hunting us for many moons and now they are close. The Sons will not stop. The Hunter will not stop.”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “You have a mosquito on your neck.”

  Kaikane: “Yep. This melon’s good.”

  Duarte: “Aren’t you going to swat it?”

  Kaikane: “One more bite ain’t gonna hurt. What do they call these fruits again? We gotta find more.”

  Duarte: “Mala-malas, which loosely translates to ‘poop-poop.’ I’d watch myself if I were you.”

  Kaikane: “So tired of raw frog and crayfish.”

  Duarte: “Me too, honey. Gray Beard says we’re almost to the end of the swamp.”

  Kaikane: “This marsh is long, but skinny. We could’ve split any day.”

  Duarte: “I know.”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Spent enough time mucking through bogs of Canada to know complaining won’t make you any less wet or cold. At least back in those days, I usually had bug juice to rub on and food pellets to eat. Hard to believe I’m sitting here missing food pellets. Tasteless, fucked-up things to miss.

  Clan’s holding up OK under soggy conditions. Not much surprise there. This is a tough crew. Even Fancy Sal stopped bellyaching once the old man set us straight. We’re in this for the long haul–and we better get used to it.

  Hard to say how they found our trail, but sounds like it was going to happen sooner or later. It was me who put it to Gray Beard straight, asked if the Hunter was bound to find us, why not get it over with? I suggested we pick a place to our liking and meet him on our terms. Man turned red and danced around a bit before giving me a big, fat “NO!” I take it he’s not looking forward to a reunion with Mr. Hunter and his boys.

  Even so, I don’t understand why we’re running from another time traveler. This dude’s supposed to be one of us, a member of The Team. He might have news or supplies to share. Sounds like he’s got some serious firepower. There’d be a lot less worry in my life if I had an automatic stunner in my hands.

  Dr. Duarte is the ranking officer and she sides with the old man. So, we run.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “I bet it will rain today. Care to make a wager?”

  Jones: “Not much of a bet. Rains every day.”

  Bolzano: “All right, you bet on rain and I will wager the wet stuff holds off all day.”

  Jones: “Old man’s callin’ for blue skies, huh?”

  Bolzano: “Yes, indeed. He predicts a fine, late-summer day.”

  Jones: “That’s why I never bet with ya Sal. Always have the game rigged somehow.”

  Bolzano: “It helps pass the time.”

  Jones: “Cheating me helps pass time?”

  Bolzano: “When have I ever cheated you? I ask you to name one specific instance.”

  Jones: “Just because nothin’ comes right to mind don’t mean it ain’t happened.”

  From the log of Dr. Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  Gray Beard used a nifty trick to mask our departure from the swamp. Too bad it didn’t work.

  I worried he would lead us in figure-eights within the wetlands forever, but on Day 11 we found our way blocked by a massive herd of lanky animals new to our eyes. The 15-foot-tall ungulates’ twin humps, long legs, sweeping antlers and shaggy coats made them appear to be outsized crosses between elk and camel. What really set the leggy creatures apart from other megafauna were their pink eyes and twitching whiskers. I joked with Cpl. Bolzano they appeared to be a blend of elk and hamster. I expected a quip about elk trying to copulate with rodents, but he didn’t have the energy for friendly banter.

  “Just another oddity in an ancient world chock full of them,” he sighed.

  We stood waiting for Gray Beard’s next move until he signaled us to follow him directly toward the herd. “Come, let us meet our new friends,” the old man said with a smile.

  Dipping snouts into the murky waters to crop watercress, then rising up to chew, the giants studied us with mesmerizing pink eyes as we picked our way through the underbrush to a relatively dry spot close enough to the herd to be bathed in their musky scent. I understand during rutting season, and later while calving their young, the species can be quite territorial and aggressive. On this sunny day in August, once they became accustomed to our presence, they more or less forgot us.

  We spent the entire afternoon drying ourselves and our gear safe amidst the gray, vine-covered limbs of a long-fallen oak. With a berry bramble to our backs and a screen of reddish-brown hides to our front, we spread out and found comfortable spots to relax. The limbs served as a barricade to assure we would not be trod upon by the lumbering animals Gray Beard calls “bobolox.” The limbs could not, however, stop some of the more curious beasts from leaning in to study our people and dogs. Big sniffs, snorts for exhalations, eyeballs wider than my entire hand.

  The storyteller predicted the bobolox would set off for the northern hills once the moon rose and, as usual, he was correct. Without any discernible change in the pitch or volume of the herd’s bellowing and snorting, its 50,000 members turned north as one and set off at a slow trot. Perhaps longtime members of the clan knew what was coming, but for Paul, Salvatore, Jones and me it came as a complete surprise when Gray Beard used the
Green Turtle words for “follow me” and led us right into the mix.

  I’ve witnessed the passing of thousands of herds in the past two years, but never once thought I would be part of the cavalcade. The only advice Gray Beard had was “stay close” as he formed us into a tight pack that merged diagonally into the moving mass of bobolox. Surrounded by the lumbering beasts, we started out splashing through mud, then over flattened meadow and finally stony ground as the herd steadily gained the highlands. Jogging at times to keep pace, extending spears over our heads to maintain a pocket amid the antlers and hooves, we traveled with the herd for several dusty hours. Our leashed, pea-brained dogs were kept to the clan’s middle to protect them from any rash notions.

  Finally, with the moon directly above, we elbowed our way free of the herd and slumped into a thick stand of fir to make nests in the needles and rest our weary bones. The first, faint barks of the Hunter’s hybrid trackers drifted in upon the wind an hour before dawn.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “During your time studying the Neanderthal of Gibraltar, you witnessed several hunts, did you not?”